Ultimate win98 pc?

[mimic]

No, there is no link to one, just a question, what components would let me build best pc that would let me go back in time and play games that were designated for win95/98 & dos and would not be probelmatic with 3dfx cards (meaning compatible with them) allowing me to play "glide" games. I still got couple of voodoo2 cards unless of course there is better easier method (some kind of emulation of older win enviroment with glide support)
I know probably all modern motherboards say there is no win98 support for them. What era of pc was the cut off? Pentium4? or later?

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

You might take a look at experimenting between DosBox and a Glide Wrapper:
http://www.zeckensack.de/glide/
http://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide
http://www.zeus-software.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15

[ark_ader]

It is not because there is no support for Win98 machines.  I have Win98 running on a modern setup, but it has something to do with HW compatibility and usage of ram.

To have such a OS running stable on any modern platform, it is best to install it on VMware.  Once I set the install ram from 128mb I can adjust it to 512mb.  Graphic games run fine, audio, and network.

Actually instead of running compatibility mode in Windows 7 I use VMware for all my legacy XP and Pre-XP hardware.  I have several devices that are not compatible with W7, but work just fine in VMWare.

If you have the licenses you can have the Vmware 98 image running on any machine(s) you want.  I have all my old PC games mounted in my main PC then transferred to the Epia PC that is disc less.

I have not yet found an old PC requiring speed reduction when in VMware.  Heck even Star Control works (rather quickly) and that was for a 8088.

If you format your VHD to Fat32 you can even boot in DOS.  With the duplication facility I do not have to Ghost any drive.  Mame .84 works fine, but I have not tried VPinball yet.

Download the free VMware player, and try it out. 

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

There's also the open-source equivalent, http://www.virtualbox.org/

[mimic]

Thx for the replays, but what would be easier to setup, all that software and hours of possible headaches of all sorts of combinations or try to get some P4 computer and setup very nice, fast win98 rig, that you know it will run everything the way it was meant to be? We talking VCR with play, rewind & FF buttons for old folks vs multimedia center that my head will spin from all the possible setups.

[drventure]

+1 on Ark-ader's advice with VMWare. Excellent piece of software and well worth the money.

The difference between VMWare and putting Win98 on the bare metal is one mainly of convenience. I find it +way+ more convenient to be able to move around Virtual machines just by copying the virtual disk file than by formatting and copying whole harddrives.

Haven't really tried much gaming under VMware though. However, it sounds like ader's done it with decent results, which wouldn't surprise me. I do know that VMware's virtual video card hasn't really  handled 3d stuff in the past very well, but for older Mame roms, it should be perfectly fine.

[mimic]

but for older Mame roms, it should be perfectly fine.

That's the thing I'm not into playing older ver of mame, I want to go back and play MDK or QUAKE I, etc with support of 3dfx cards (or open GL/Glide) So I rather put a new machine together and now that it works 100%. Of course if that VMware can give me close enough results, I'd probably be more interested.

[DillonFoulds]

I've gone both ways to set one of these up. I've got a decent windows 98se VM going on VM Ware. There is noticeable input lag, and the video still is only so-so, at best. These factors make it difficult to game, really.

Then I've tried building a machine. I did it with a Soltek Socket A motherboard, Athlon XP 3200+, 2x512 DDR ram (OCZ, dual channel), a 120gb IDE hard drive (did a full format, wrote 0's the the entire drive to try and smooth out any potential read errors). I'd say everything considered it's a decent rig, very fast for windows 98se. The setup takes MUCH longer to complete, and finding drivers was easily the hardest part of the task, but in the end windows 98 and 95 era gaming is 10x better than through a VM.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Just a small plug for my friend LordHavoc's Quake 1 engine rebuild, DarkPlaces:
http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces/screenshots.html

If you want to run Quake 1 on modern hardware it's easily the best way.